KETO AND ATHLETES: What You Need To Know!

KETO AND ATHLETES- WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW!

There are many athletes who are gravitating towards a keto lifestyle and for good reason. There are a LOT of advantages to being a keto-adapted athlete! Sure, the first couple weeks you might feel a little less energetic than usual, but if you can make it past the adaptation phase you can reap the rewards of having an extra ketone engine booster!

TOP 5 REASONS TO KETO-ADAPT IF YOU ARE ATHLETE (AT ANY LEVEL!)

Here are the top 5 reasons you can benefit by becoming keto-adapted if you are an athlete:

ACCESS TO MORE ENERGY

And who doesn’t want that? Remember that we can only store somewhere around 1500 calories of stored glycogen (aka stored carbohydrate) but that even the leanest person carries upwards of 30,000 or more calories of stored fat. Most of us have a bit more! But, we can’t efficiently access that energy if we aren’t keto-adapted. Instead, we’ll just bonk until we get that next hit of carb.

FASTER RECOVERY

Ketones, the fuel our bodies make from fat, burns cleaner, with less oxidants (think ‘rust). It also produces less lactic acid (ow! That’s what makes you sore the next day) in muscles. Keto also literally suppresses the activity of inflammatory genes, along with simply eliminating some of the most inflammatory foods in our diet: grains, gluten, sugar, refined carbohydrates, and processed vegetable oils. All of that means faster recovery so you can get back out there and do it again.

PRESERVES LONG TERM HEALTH

Even though that endurance marathoner might have a lean frame, or that lifter might be nothing but muscle, he or she is not immune to the damaging effects of all the extra carbohydrates often perceived to be needed for exercise, especially endurance events. Long term, many athletes who have reached the highest level of accomplishment have suffered the negative health effects of this type of fueling.

Accessing your fat burning metabolism can seriously reduce this exercise-supporting carb intake and thereby preserve your deeper health long term. Blood sugar dysregulation is at the heart of many chronic degenerative diseases as we age, including diabetes and pre-diabetes, systemic inflammation, cardiac issues, and neurodegenerative issues.

REDUCED GUT DISTRESS

Both during events and after! ‘Runner’s trots’ is a real issue for many endurance athletes; not having to fuel quite as much during the event or use those icky fake gels can go a long way to preventing this. Long term and after the race or workout, reducing carbohydrate intake helps guts stay healthy and avoid gut inflammation, excess bacterial overgrowth, and permeability (aka ‘leaky gut’) that can lead to systemic problems.

IMPROVEMENTS IN BODY COMPOSITION-

These benefits are many and there are so many good things that happen here when you reduce carbohydrate intake, and therefore insulin. However, let’s just focus on one- lean muscle mass. A ketogenic diet was found to significantly boost athletes lean muscle mass gains over a short time (that is really getting more bang for your training buck!)

Also, being keto-adapted makes intermittent fasting that much easier- and that is where you really boost human growth hormone levels, allowing even more efficient increase of lean muscle mass. It’s a no-brainer.

READY TO KETO-ADAPT?

So there you have it- 5 pretty convincing reasons why you should consider becoming keto-adapted if you have an athletic bone in your body. If you want to dig deeper I highly recommend the book The Art and Science of Low Carb Performance by Volek and Phinney.

Have questions or your own experience with this? Reach out or leave a comment!

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